Product Description

The Caucasus is a land whose jagged terrain points starkly to the region's rich but bloody past - and to a present that is no less troubled. Nicholas Griffin combines narrative history with travelogue as he explores the Caucasus in search of the legacy of Imam Shamil, 19th-century freedom fighter and guru of today's Chechen resistance. This book lifts the lid on a little known but crucially important area of the world whose future today, as ever, hangs in balance.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1269620 in Books
• Published on: 2002-05-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 251 pages

About the Author
Nicholas Griffin is an award-winning novelist. This is his first work of non-fiction.

Customer Reviews

Would have been 5 stars but ....
Like a previous Amazon reviewer of this book I caught a couple of factual howlers. Having worked in publishing I had to wonder if the copy editor just couldn't be bothered to double check. The map has Lake Van in Armenia, when it should be Lake Sevan. I feel bad for the author, because in the end, it comes out under his name. That said, I loved the rest of the book. You get the feeling that in a post September 11th world, places like Chechnya might be bundled in with the 'terrorist' states, but Griffin puts forward a convincing argument of historical legacy. This region is different, very different, from any other and its history is violent, distinctive and fascinating. The wonderful thing about this book is it never loses you, but leads you from myth, through history and politics, letting anecdotes ease you through hundreds of years of what might have been confusing facts and figures. If only they'd have spent another week ironing out the wrinkles.

Blend of Genres
It's a strange book and wonderful at that. I didn't know much about the region of the Caucasus, and thought it was at least as confusing as the Balkans. This straightened it all out. It's told half as travel and half as history, moving back and forth, never throwing indigestible amounts of information at you. Even though I got the feeling that the author was trying to demythologize the Caucasus, I think it's impossible. The stories within the book are too remarkable, too romantic and colorful. It makes this one of the better travel books of the year.

Not always accurate, but enjoyable
The book (like the four characters whose voyage is in search of Shamil) is not without its flaws. Save for the mountains of the north, Georgia is a rich land of rippled green hills - well, perhaps it look likes that on an atlas. Lake Van is within Armenia's current borders - er, maybe in a very, very old atlas. The Chavchavadze family tree goes back all the way to the birth of Georgia itself, 800 years ago - strange, bearing in mind that Georgia converted to Christianity in the 4th Century. And a special note on spellings in my edition claims that the author has "in the end simply chosen the easiest phonetic option", which can only be true if it's code for "not really had time to check". Presidential advisor Gela Charkviani will be interested to learn that he's been re-christened "Gala".
Overall, though, I found that this book is not only very readable but contains plenty of new material about Georgia, including meetings with descendents of the aristocratic Chavchavadze family and of Imam Shamil himself. As an account of Chechen history, it also comes across as much more thoughtful than the rather partisan Chechnya, Calamity In The Caucasus (also subtitled "A Short Victorious War") by Carlotta Gall and Thomas De Waal, which I enjoyed reading last winter.